I may have to turn in my nerd card.
Because: my husband beat me at computer Scrabble last night.
People. This is HUGE. We both went into it thinking that I had a substantial advantage, since I am the English teacher, avid reader, and all around word nerd. So when he had sat there for fifteen minutes pondering the screen, I kindly pointed out to him the word "BENCH." Because otherwise the game would have taken seventeen hours, and I don't have that kind of time.
That put him up 16 points and he never looked back.
How did he win? Well, on the computer version we downloaded from Yahoo! Games, there is an official Scrabble dictionary that lets you test words to see if they are acceptable. My sweet darling would start typing random letters that didn't even sound like words, as long as they contained the most high-scoring letters. And lo and behold, some of them WERE words. In other languages.
That's how he came up with "QOPH." 26 points or something close to it.
It's a letter in the Hebrew alphabet, if you were wondering. (The one person who is still reading. I mean, Scrabble? Who freaking cares, right?)
I don't want to play that way, because I get bored typing all possible combinations of my tiles in AND because it should be against the rules. You couldn't do that with regular Scrabble!
Don't even get me started on the Hint feature. It gives you the letters you need to make crazy-high scores and all you have to do is figure out the word with the computer's help. (GAZABO was 41 points. GAZEBO I know, GAZABO just sounds WRONG.)
He's not allowed to use the Hint anymore. I almost caught up with him using only my amazing brain so next time I may have to play it his way just to keep my superior nerd status intact.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment to play against the computer.
My husband is freakishly good at Scrabble and I am the one with the big vocabulary - but he plays it as a game of skill and not as a game of wordiness. Cheater.
ReplyDeleteBeck's hit the nail on the head. That's exactly the difference between Justin & I with this game.
ReplyDeleteLOL! He didn't REALLY beat you then. You could totally take him on the old fashioned board.
ReplyDeleteAnd what Beck wrote is the difference between me and my husband at Scrabble, too.
ReplyDeletei saw a shirt somewhere that showed a tile holder with only letters like q,k,z,x, etc. on it... i actually thought of you when i saw it. "only A. could make something out of that" i thought. apparently i was wrong... only J. could do so. ha ha
ReplyDeleteJonny almost always beats me at Scrabble. My downfall is that I want to come up with unusual and creative words to show off my vast vocubulary, while he's all about the score. And so he wins.
ReplyDelete